If I hear the likes of Michele Bachmann demand that we pay homage to a wonderful country and thank our lucky stars for the wages we are allowed to work for, I’ll hit the roof. If you want to be thankful on Thanksgiving, it is not “The Country” collective—whatever that means—that you should thank. A country is a composite of individuals. To the extent that a preponderance of Americans practice a respect for America’s founding documents—to that extent the collective will reflect this country’s great philosophy. Sadly, the number of individuals who practice our wonderful American creed is diminishing daily.

William Bradford was the governor of the original Pilgrim colony, founded at Plymouth in 1621. The colony was first organized on a communal basis, as their financiers required. Land was owned in common. The Pilgrims farmed communally, too, following the “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” precept.
The results were disastrous. Communism didn’t work any better 400 years ago than it does today. By 1623, the colony had suffered serious losses. Starvation was imminent.
Bradford realized that the communal system encouraged and rewarded waste and laziness and inefficiency, and destroyed individual initiative. Desperate, he abolished it. He distributed private plots of land among the surviving Pilgrims, encouraging them to plant early and farm as individuals, not collectively.
The results: a bountiful early harvest that saved the colonies. After the harvest, the Pilgrims celebrated with a day of Thanksgiving — on August 9th.
Unfortunately, William Bradford’s diaries — in which he recorded the failure of the collectivist system and the triumph of private enterprise — were lost for many years. When Thanksgiving was later made a national holiday, the present November date was chosen. And the lesson the Pilgrims so painfully learned was, alas, not made a part of the holiday.
Happily, Bradford’s diaries were later rediscovered. They’re available today in paperback. They tell the real story of Thanksgiving — how private property and individual initiative saved the Pilgrims.
This Thanksgiving season, one of the many things I’m thankful for is our free market system (imperfectly realized as it is). And I’m also grateful that there are increasing numbers of Americans who are learning the importance of free markets, and who are working to replace government coercion with marketplace cooperation here in America and around the world.

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5 thoughts on “Celebrate Private Property & Personhood Today”

May your day be marked with peace and pleasure of what your labor has wrought over the last year. The world is going to go its own way no matter what, best to please the person in the mirror and enjoy what is possible today.

“the colony had suffered serious losses. Starvation was imminent.
Bradford realized that the communal system encouraged and rewarded waste and laziness and inefficiency, and destroyed individual initiative. Desperate, he abolished it. He distributed private plots of land among the surviving Pilgrims, encouraging them to plant early and farm as individuals, not collectively.” God neither dictated Communism or Capitalism, but I’ll bet he blessed the ones who took care to see to their own needs. It sounds to me that Bradford was the one who deserves the community thanksgiving. Just like Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, so for Bradford who used the common sense G-d helped them to learn.